Lansdale Mom Drives Drunk With Children in Car to Get Wine, Police Say

By TONY DI DOMIZIO

July 26, 2014 at 1:13 PM

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A Lansdale mother faces DUI and child endangerment charges in Towamencin Township after she was arrested for allegedly driving drunk with her two toddlers in her car to a Wine & Spirits store to buy wine, and then leaving them unattended in the car, police said.

Amy Lynn Dooney, 31, of the 800 block of Wedgewood Drive, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, two misdemeanor counts of DUI, and summary counts of leaving children unattended in a motor vehicle and improper child restraints, according to court records.

At 8:45 p.m. July 12, police were called to the Wine & Spirits store in the Allen-Forge Shopping Center at 850 Valley Forge Road for a report of children left unattended in a silver Honda Pilot parked in front of the store, police said.

Upper Gwynedd Township Police arrived on scene first and found the Honda parked in a space in front of the store with two unattended children in the second-row rear seat, police said. The car was running and locked.

As officers drove toward the Honda, a white female, identified as Dooney, used a remote lock to enter the car and sat in the driver’s seat, police said.

Dooney told police she did leave her two children, aged seven and three, in the car while she went into the Wine & Spirits to buy wine, police said.

Neither child was in the proper booster seat required for youths under eight years old, police said.

Dooney had bloodshot, glassy eyes, police said, and she had an odor of alcohol on her.

Dooney told police she had two Bloody Marys at her parents’ house in Lansdale at 5 p.m., police said.

While she was undergoing the tests, another officer stayed with the children.

The seven-year-old remarked to the officer, “I only blew the horn because Mommy was taking too long,” police said.

Dooney failed tests and was taken into custody at 9:10 p.m., and taken to Towamencin Township Police headquarters for a breath test, which registered a BAC of .15 percent, police said. She was turned over to Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputies, police said.